Girls Club: Food Restriction
I lived in a group home for several months where I experienced food restriction when I was 17 years old. Eleven other girls and I were housemates, our ages ranging from 15 to 17 years old.
I still remember the look in the girls eyes the first time I walked into the group home’s kitchen and saw a refrigerator surrounded with a thick linked silver chain that was secured with a padlock.
When I faced the girls sitting at the kitchen table, our eyes met and locked in mutual recognition that I had joined this club of food restriction.
Even though I lived in the group home several decades ago, that chained up, padlocked fridge remained a distinct and haunting memory. Its message clear, its delivery strong.
We girls were denied control over our most basic human need: access to food when hungry.
That padlocked fridge was like something from an all-too-real evil fairy tale, and repeatedly seeing this image of food restriction made a chain-linked, padlocked fridge part of the scenery.
We Lacked Agency Over Our Food Choices
Naturally, meals were scheduled and we had little control over what we ate, short of not eating at all. The staff who worked in the group home determined our dinner and snack menus.
However, our one minor concession was in choosing between 2 sandwich fillings for our bagged lunch for school.
The food quality wasn’t great, but we ate the dinner provided whether we liked the food or not because we couldn’t afford to eat in restaurants.
The group home had rules regarding the evening meal. If you missed attending dinner but hadn’t put your name on the sign out sheet, you didn’t get dinner.
You didn’t get to eat any leftovers, either. You had to plan ahead and sign yourself out for dinner in advance for staff to save a plate of food for your return.
If a girl didn’t have food issues when she arrived at the group home, she left with the foundation of a complimentary eating disorder as a visceral reminder of the food restriction she experienced while living in that house.
I soon realized I had to rebel against staff authority to gain some control over our food consumption.
My friends in the group home and I picked the battle we had the best chance of winning: the freedom to choose our evening snack. Since staff kept our snacks locked in the pantry room, we needed their cooperation.
We Took a Risk in Speaking Up
Five girls and I agreed to execute our plan at the next house meeting.
Group was a weekly session between the staff members who were on shift that evening and the girls who lived in the house.
Attendance was a mandatory condition of living in the group home.
We took a risk in speaking up.
We risked the staff personally attacking us. Exposing our vulnerabilities and examining them in front of all the girls.
Staff used different terminology, but it was, in effect, bullying.
We typically stared at the floor during the excruciating ninety minutes of Group and hoped they didn’t turn their laser focus onto us.
The Stakes Were High
We had to push back with something we had the chance of winning.
More than food was at stake.
It was about having agency over our daily lives.
Sadly, lack of agency and food restriction made food the battleground on which we fought, a power struggle over sustenance and nutrition that further fed the foundations and growth of eating disorders.
When our motion to choose our snacks passed, staff were forced to give us the semblance of open discussion. The illusion of negotiation. And we won.
Ultimately, staff approved our motion to choose our own snacks on a provisional basis.
Five minutes before snack time, the girls in the house gathered in the kitchen to vote on which snack we’d have that day. Majority ruled. We never had a problem in agreeing.
The problem was in the house rules that controlled and restricted eating, which gave food a heightened sense of importance to us. We felt it at a primal level because hunger was a primal need.
We Were Alone and Vulnerable
Food restriction caused us to make food the focus of our attention, the source of a power struggle for our agency, when we should have been planning how to get out of that group home.
To decide what we needed to do to live independently.
The staff didn’t teach us life skills.
We had no one to advocate for us. Left to fend for ourselves, we were vulnerable, some more so than others.
My time in the group home happened before cell phones, before social media.
We had no way of exposing what we felt was our mistreatment in the group home.
We had no one to confide in, no one in a position of authority who could help us.
We felt voiceless. Alone. Invisible.
Welcome to my invisible life.
© 2022 Elizabeth Healy
You can find my collected blogs: Elizabeth Healy — Medium
This blog is the first in the series about my invisible life.
My story is of ultimately transcending my difficult childhood and pursuing my writing career.
